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Turtle

I have fun doing things in my garden. I do gardening and feeding the birds. This afternoon, I spent a couple hours pulling weeds on the slope in my backyard, the last area of the garden needed attention.

By 4:00 p.m., there are about a dozen mourning doves perching on the telephone wires above the garden waiting for me to put the seeds out to feed them. I don’t have a bird seed feeder, I just put the seeds on the patio every day. The house finches are also regular visitors.

There are squirrels in the backyard. They like to eat the bird seeds. We don’t have trees with big nuts so they settle with bird seeds. There were several times when one squirrel came, I tried to scare him away. He looked right at me. Then he went to the corner of the wooden fence. But as soon as I went into the house, he came back. The birds didn’t like to be around him so they all flew away. The birds only stay until almost sunset. When the sun starts going down, they fly away. I had to make sure the squirrel went away and let the birds eat.

There are several stray cats in the backyard. The mourning doves like to stand on the cinder block retaining wall. They are not as alert as my other birds such as the house finches. This black and white cat is smart. He stayed low and ambled until he was behind the cinder block wall and right under the mourning dove, then he jumped up and snatched the bird and dashed up the slope to be out of my sight. I was so mad at him and tried many ways to block the cat from coming close to where the birds like to hang out.

My husband and I go on walks around Laguna Lake by our home. There are several turtles coming out of the water frequently. This turtle is the most colorful and handsome among them.

Tina’s theme for Lens-Artists Challenge #36 is: Around the Neighborhood

Laguna Lake is within walking distance in our neighborhood. The word Laguna means lake in Spanish, so that makes “Laguna Lake” redundant, but it is known as Laguna Lake for many years. It’s about half a mile from our home on a hilly area. We sometimes walked up the hill to the lake and sometimes drove there if we started late in the afternoon. It’s 0.77 miles around the lake. My husband likes to run around the lake three times while I walk one or two times depending on how often I stop to take photos. The lake area is part of the cycling and horse trail that extends to different part of the city.

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About me

Miriam Hurdle grew up in Hong Kong where she went to college and worked for five years before coming to the United States. While in Hong Kong, she taught Chinese as a Second Language in Hong Kong Baptist University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong for three years. She was also the Director of Children’s Department at the Asian Outreach where she published four Chinese Children’s books.
Miriam Hurdle came to the United States for her graduate studies. She received her master’s degrees in Christian Ministry from Portland Seminary, Counseling from Seattle Pacific University, and Education Administration from California State University, Los Angles. After teaching in California public school for fifteen years, she was promoted to a school district administrative position. She went on to do the postgraduate studies and earned her Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership from La Verne University in California. Dr. Hurdle continued in her administrative position for ten years before her retirement.
In her retired life, Dr. Hurdle enjoys doing volunteer counseling, reading, writing, blogging, singing, drawing, watercolor painting, gardening, photographing, and traveling. Dr. Hurdle is married to Lynton Hurdle and has one married daughter and one granddaughter.